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U.S. Supreme Court Decides Great Lakes
On February 21, 2024, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its decision in Great Lakes Insurance SE v. Raiders Retreat Realty Company, LLC.
The question presented was whether, under federal admiralty law, a choice-of-law clause in a maritime contract can be rendered unenforceable if enforcement is contrary to the “strong public policy” of the U.S. state whose law is displaced. In a unanimous opinion authored by Justice Kavanaugh, the Court concluded that the answer to this question was no. It held that choice-of-law provisions in maritime contracts are presumptively enforceable as a matter of federal maritime law. It further held that while there are narrow exceptions to this rule, state public policy is not one of them.
Implied Jurisdiction Agreements in International Commercial Contracts
Authors: Abubakri Yekini (Lecturer in Conflict of Laws at the University of Manchester) and Chukwuma Okoli (Assistant Professor in Commercial Conflict of Laws at the University of Birmingham, Senior Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg).
A Introduction
In an increasingly globalised economy, commercial transactions often involve business entities from different countries. These cross-border transactions present complex legal questions, such as the place where potential disputes will be adjudicated. To provide certainty, commercial parties often conclude ex ante agreements on the venue for dispute resolution by selecting the court(s) of a particular state. However, what happens if no such express agreement over venue is reached for resolving a contractual dispute? Could consent to the venue be implicitly inferred from the parties’ conduct or other factors?
A note on “The BBC Nile” in the High Court of Australia – foreign arbitration agreement and choice of law clause and Article 3(8) of the Amended Hague Rules in Australia
By Poomintr Sooksripaisarnkit
Lecturer in Maritime Law, Australian Maritime College, University of Tasmania
Introduction
On 14th February 2024, the High Court of Australia handed down its judgment in Carmichael Rail Network Pty Ltd v BBC Chartering Carriers GmbH & Co KG [2024] HCA 4. The case has ramifications on whether a foreign arbitration clause (in this case, the London arbitration clause) would be null and void under the scheme of the Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1991 (Cth) which makes effective an amended version of the International Convention on the Unification of Certain Rules of Law relating to Bills of Lading, Brussels, 25 August 1924 (the “Hague Rules”). The argument focused on the potential effect of Article 3(8) of the Amended Hague Rules, which, like the original version, provides:
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University of East Anglia Law Podcast Series on (Private and Public) International Law: Series 3 out now
All episodes of Series 3 of the University of East Anglia Law School Podcast are now out. Hosted by Rishi Gulati, they cover the following topics:
- The Future of International Investment Law (Muthucumarasamy Sornarajah)
- Double Standards in International Law (Patryk Labuda)
- The launch of the Elgar Companion to UNIDROIT (Edward Elgar, 2024)
- The Rise of International Commercial Courts (Giesela Rühl)
- The exercise of self-defence in outer space (Chris O’Meara)
- Greenland, Self-Determination, and the Geopolitical Contest (Maria Ackrén).
All episodes are available at SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify
Where do Children Reside? Where they are “at Home”
The Supreme Court of Canada has released its reasons for dismissing the appeal (which it did orally on December 9, 2024) in Dunmore v Mehralian, 2025 SCC 20. The narrow issue was the meaning of “habitual residence” for a child in the statutory context of the Children’s Law Reform Act (Ontario). The SCC had earlier explained that a hybrid approach to the meaning of habitual residence is to be used under the Hague Convention: Office of the Children’s Lawyer v Balev, 2018 SCC 16. In the convention, there is no definition of habitual residence. In contrast, the CLRA does provide elements of a definition of habitual residence (in s 22) though it leaves “resides” undefined. This generated the issue: under the statute, does the same hybrid approach apply or is the definition different because of the statute?
AMEDIP’s upcoming webinar: WIPO Expedited Arbitration on 26 June 2025 (in Spanish)
The Mexican Academy of Private International and Comparative Law (AMEDIP) is holding a webinar on Thursday 26 June 2025 at 14:30 (Mexico City time – CST), 22:30 (CEST time). The topic of the webinar is WIPO expedited arbitration: ADR and ODR in the era of technology disputes, videogames and e-sports and will be presented by Kiyoshi Tsuru and Óscar Suárez (WIPO) (in Spanish).